My question is to you In the first step in buying a Carvin guitar is deciding which model of instrument you want. The company offers a wide array of options concerning wood, and also you know one thing Carvin sells directly to the customer, and new Carvins are not available in music stores.

Hi dillon. I'm also in the market for a guitar and have recently determined that Carvin guitars were within my price range for the exact specs that I wanted. Fortunately for me, I am at an advantage because I live in San Diego by the Carvin factory. I have gone there 3-5 times in the last few months to try a few of the bodies, necks, pickups, fret sizes, amps and many other things that I could choose to have as custom work.

Before I, or you, plop down that much money, you should really try to get an idea of what you're buying in terms of feeling and sound. My biggest hurdle was getting over the thinner neck of the Carvin, which I think is similar to a "wizard" neck on the RG series (more of a D shaped back of neck as opposed to a C like on a strat). As an aside, I have played Ibanez guitars my entire like (about 13 years, most recently a JS1000) and decided to go this route because I didn't like the upper-fret access and the color of my guitar. I also didn't really like the moreAlso, I wanted something that could produce a few more sounds. Be that as it may, I have spent HOURs on the carvinbbs forums looking at the differences between all of the pickups - which are hand wound by one woman who works there 3 days a week - the bridges and fret radii.

I, personally, am not a fan of the neck through or the set neck models because they finish the backs of the necks, which are hard to play with since your fingers can get caught up on them. You may although, have the option of doing a natural wood + tongue oil finish.

So to end:

Find a guitar in your area with neck dimensions similar to that of the Carvin you're interested in and play it. Try a 10", 12" and 14" radius neck (254mm, 304.8mm, and 355.6mm respectively) to see what you like.

great to know the pups are hand wound! i am liking the bridge, believe its a C22B. very bright, but its got growl and twang! the neck? meh. it works. not thrilled.

you can most definitely get a tung oiled finish on the set neck CT series, and i think it is custom order on the DC (might not have a 10 day trail period if you do custom work). its harder because they paint the whole guitar and the neck its through the body.

at least the set necks are 2 pieces, body separate. but i specifically wanted 25 scale, so a bolt was out for me.

i have to say that after a few weeks to month of playing my guitar, i definitely ply better and more accurately. the guitar fits me like a glove, the neck is heaven, the body shape is so much better than a les paul. seriously why does anybody play les pauls.

i have 2 complaints: 1 - the wiring is meh. my volume pot isn't very high quality. bad taper, hard to turn.

the neck pickup is meh. but it sounds GREAT in middle mode and in split mode, so i am hesitant to take it out on a gamble ( i mean really, how do you try pups these days?)

great to know the pups are hand wound! i am liking the bridge, believe its a C22B. very bright, but its got growl and twang! the neck? meh. it works. not thrilled.

you can most definitely get a tung oiled finish on the set neck CT series, and i think it is custom order on the DC (might not have a 10 day trail period if you do custom work). its harder because they paint the whole guitar and the neck its through the body.

at least the set necks are 2 pieces, body separate. but i specifically wanted 25 scale, so a bolt was out for me.

Actually, there's no biggie connected with getting the neck on a DC finished in either tung oil or satin (which would be my preference). The guitar has a masked-off point where the transition occurs, that's all. It's not all that custom; there's a check box for it.

Here's my take: I've got a solid maple V220 (explorer-ish) with an ebony fretboard. I expected extremely bright, but it's got some serious punch with an M22SD in the bridge. I've got a koa body/neck DC-150 (the old version, but this is a neck-through rather than a set-neck; they shifted over just before they discontinued them in '92). It's got a flame maple cap, ebony fretboard, abalone inlays and an H-S-H layout with M22N and T pickups. It's sorta mellow sounding. Nice. I've also got a solid maple neck-through DC-150, ebony f/b with a Kahler and none-more-black hardware. This is an H-H with an M22SD in the bridge and maybe an M22V in the neck, but there's an active preamp on this sucker with a master bass and master treble with an active boost/cut of 15 dB in either direction, plus coil taps and a phase switch and a blend knob. This is a king $h!t rock and roll guitar (and heavy!). I've got a '93 solid mahogany DC135 (HSS) neck-through in black with gold hardware. The bridge pickup is, again, an M22SD and the single-coil size pickups are actually stacked humbuckers. This is anything but sterile. I've also got a '91 DC145 (HSH, again) in solid koa neck-through, but this one's got a 22-fret 25.5" neck, one of the rarest of Carvins, since they did it just that one year. This one has C22 pickups and an AP-11 single coil. Not what it came with originally, but the previous owner so screwed up the original pickups that we just shook out the hardware and started over. Awesome playing guitar and I can NOT get Carvin to build me a backup for it no matter how I beg. And then there's the most recent DC145 (HSH), a solid mahogany neck-through with a fancy quilt top, gold hardware and that Wilkinson trem that nobody likes (except me, I guess). 25" scale, 24 frets (everything but the '91 has 24 frets). Same pickups and controls exactly as the '91, but they sound a bit different (koa vs. hog? 25.5" vs. 25"? dunno). With this bunch of very different-from-each-other-sounding guitars, it tickles me a bit that people can make blanket statements about pickups. If they come over to the house and I hand them each of those guitars, they quickly get the picture, though.

I've ignored the CS's (I've got Les Pauls and Agiles that fill that slot) and the CTs (I have a couple of PRS's, so why bother building a lookalike Carvin for that?), but I'm looking *really* hard at getting one of the Holdsworth headless guitars. I could wish that the neck was a little thinner on those. And I wouldn't mind a neck-through, but what the hell, it's an extremely compact 25.5" scale guitar with 24 frets, and it's very light and very fast to play.

At one point, that was their top of the line model. It's SOLID curly (quilted) maple, body and neck. Abalone inlays (including the headstock inlays), ebony board, brass nut. Even in the '70's, this one had a pair of coil taps and a phase switch. The body is a bit smaller than an LP, but it's *heavy*. There were a few of those done in solid koa as well. Not as heavy, but solid tone and difficult to find these days.

My second Carvin was a black 1982 DN612 which, like the DC160, I've put through hell and it keeps coming back for more. Those two are among the axes I will never part with in this lifetime.

REEEEeeeeaaaalllly....
Please inform your next of kin that I'd like right of first refusal on those, and that I'll be seeing them sometime next week with cash and condolences.

You should put up pictures of the DN 612 (for those who don't know, DN = Double Neck, 612 = 6 string and 12-string). That was a gorgeous guitar in its day. And since it was also solid maple, you needed four Nubian slaves to carry it on stage for you. I had one of those. Miss it.